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omg

see opus dei

LEO

KUDLOW

ROBERTS 2025

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GIL BK

ROBERTS OPUS DEI; LEO

PANULA STANFORD pt

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gee, i was just wondering about paleo-cath

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/the-seeds-of-theocratic-authoritarianism-are-being-planted/

no lnx

The seeds of Theocratic Authoritarianism are being planted

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly December 31, 2019

Since it became obvious that Attorney General William Barr manipulated the release of the Mueller report in an attempt to exonerate Donald Trump, people have been asking the questions posed recently by Katherine Stewart and Caroline Fredrickson.

Why would a seemingly respectable, semiretired lion of the Washington establishment undermine the institutions he is sworn to uphold, incinerate his own reputation, and appear to willfully misrepresent the reports of special prosecutors and inspectors general, all to defend one of the most lawless and corrupt presidents in American history? And why has this particular attorney general appeared at this pivotal moment in our Republic?

Initially we heard a lot about Barr being part of a group of Republicans who are dedicated to the concept of a “unitary executive.” That was affirmed by the attorney general’s recent speech to the Federalist Society. It was, however, Barr’s speech at Notre Dame that led many of us to look at little deeper into what motivates this attorney general. He blamed “secularists” for moral chaos and posited that “free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people.” Stewart and Fredrickson point out that these views are foundational for Barr.

This form of “religious liberty” is not a mere side issue for Mr. Barr, or for the other religious nationalists who have come to dominate the Republican Party. Mr. Barr has made this clear. All the problems of modernity — “the wreckage of the family,” “record levels of depression and mental illness,” “drug addiction” and “senseless violence” — stem from the loss of a strict interpretation of the Christian religion.

As Joan Walsh recently pointed out, a look atBarr’s history demonstrates that he has been “neck-deep in extremist Catholic institutions.” One of the more interesting is theCatholic Information Center.

As recently as 2017, he was on the board of directors of the DC-based Catholic Information Center, led by the ultraright and secretive group Opus Dei.He’s not alone in being tied to that center. Its board includes the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, and White House counsel Pat Cipollone is a former board member.“The small center—its members and its leaders—continue to have an outsize impact on policy and politics,” The Washington Post wrote this year.

Larry Kudlow is another fan of the center. Its longtime president, Father John McCloskey, converted Kudlow from Judaism when he was struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. “I’d like to unleash him on Capitol Hill,” Kudlow told The Washington Times in 2001. “A few doses of Father McCloskey, and we’ll turn this country around. In some ways, the Catholic Church has fallen short in its evangelizing mission, and I think Father John is awakening that.” McCloskey also baptized modern ultraright stalwarts like former Kansas senator Sam Brownback and über–GOP fixer Newt Gingrich, whose wife is now the ambassador to the Vatican. (I kid you not.)

McCloskey left the center in 2003 after two credible allegations of abusing women who went to him for pastoral advice, and the center settled at least one of the complaints for almost a million dollars.

Reading the Washington Post article Walsh linked to about the Catholic Information Center, it became clear that this group appears to be the Catholic version of the Protestant group Jeff Sharlet wrote about in his book, “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.” It is especially worth noting that the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo serves on the board of the Catholic Information Center. He is the person featured in a Washington Post report by Robert O’Harrow and Shawn Boberg titled “A conservative activist’s behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation’s courts.” All of those extremist judges being nominated by Trump and rushed through confirmation by McConnell are being fed into the system by Leonard Leo, who joins Barr in being affiliated with an extremist Catholic organization.

All of this is why Stewart and Fredrickson point out that Barr’s interpretation of executive power is an “effect, rather than a cause, of his ideological commitments.”

Mr. Barr’s constitutional interpretation is simply window dressing on his commitment to religious authoritarianism….America’s conservative movement, having morphed into a religious nationalist movement, is on a collision course with the American constitutional system.Though conservatives have long claimed to be the true champions of the Constitution…the movement that now controls the Republican Party is committed to a suite of ideas that are fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution and the Republic that the founders created under its auspices…

Mr. Barr did not emerge in order to serve this one particular leader. On the contrary, Mr. Trump serves a movement that will cynically praise the Constitution in order to destroy it, and of which Mr. Barr has made himself a hero.

With adherents like Attorney General William Barr, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, this movement is more than simply theoretical. For example:

[T]he President has a growing number of supporters who understand opposition to abortion and immigration as intertwined—as means of preserving a white, Christian America. And the Trump Administration is taking concrete steps to encourage this ideational fusion.

Consider the events of last week. The Trump Administration dispatched officials to the International Conference on Family Policy. There, Trump officials laudedHungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policies, which oppose refugees and immigration and instead subsidize traditional, nuclear Hungarian families to have more children. These policies coincided with a new Hungarian constitution, which protects fetal life from the moment of conception.

Joe Grogan, an assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council, praised Hungary for the “courage and creativity” of these policies and said the Trump Administration was “inspired” and came “in support and solidarity.” He took the occasion of celebrating Hungary’s fertility-boosting programs to affirm the Administration’s opposition to abortion.

Hungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policies have their roots in “replacement theory.” This doctrine holds that white women are not producing enough babies and Christian, western civilizations will be “replaced” through the twin forces of falling birth rates and increasing immigration.

Back in March, Trump’s HHS provided $5.1 million Title X family-planning funds to an organization called Obria, which aims to be a pro-life alternative to Planned Parenthood.

In 2015, Obria’s founder and current chief executive explained, “When [Europe’s] nations accepted contraception and abortion, they stopped replacing their population. Christianity began to die out. And, with Europeans having no children, immigrant Muslims came in to replace them, and now the culture of Europe is changing.” She warned that America is “on the same track as Europe” and that “[i]n only two of the past 40 years have we replaced our population.” WHITE GENOCIDE

Anyone familiar with Margret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale understands that this is what happens when democracy is replaced bytheocratic authoritarianism. It is a marriage of white nationalism, Christian nationalism, and misogyny. That is where the current conservative movement is headed in this country.

Nancy LeTourneau is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly. Follow her on Twitter @Smartypants60.

ref  no twt

http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03/opus-deis-influence-on-the-u-s-judiciary/

"leonard Leo can take credit for installing four Supreme Court justices” – John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “As executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leo has been the quiet architect of a pivotal shift to the right throughout the federal judiciary” including “dozens of lower court federal judges across the country.”

It was Leo who prepared Trump’s “list of judges and the people that he’s put on the bench.”

Leo is on the board of directors of Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center

located at 15th and K Street, two blocks from the White House. The

Center is “a rallying point for ultra-conservative Catholics eager for a

voice in the secular halls of government power” and “advances a hard-right political agenda,” according to Church and State, Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s magazine.

Other members of the Catholic Information Center’s Board of Directors include:

Mitchell – another partner in Stein Mitchell Cipollone Beato and

Missner. Their attorneys have “unparalleled expertise” in the federal courts and “before the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice” according to the firm’s website.

and Campaign Finance Compliance.” Its attorneys are admitted to the

“Bar and Court” of the “District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals for

the District of Columbia Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth

Circuit and U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.”

Opus Dei

Opus Dei is a secret society and an official arm of the Catholic Church. Its roots are in fascist Spain.

In

1982, Pope John Paul II designated the group as a “personal prelature,”

that is, they are under the sole jurisdiction of the pope and no other

prelate. Its website states, “Opus Dei’s mission

is to spread the Christian message that every person is called to

holiness and that every honest work can be sanctified.” As of 2017 there

are 92,892 lay members and 2,212 priests worldwide.

Non-Catholics are welcomed

as “cooperators” who “assist the educational and social undertakings

promoted by the Prelature.” Priests not ordained into Opus Dei can be a

member of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, “intrinsically united to the Prelature.”

Only

the identities of Opus Dei priests are public. Members of the Priestly

Society of the Holy Cross and all lay members’ and cooperators’ names

are secret unless self-disclosed, such as being openly affiliated with

the Catholic Information Center.

At the top:

“Opus Dei is an efficient machine run to achieve worldly power,” wrote investigative reporter Penny Lernoux in her book, People of God.

“Opus

Dei pursues the Vatican’s agenda through the presence of its members in

secular governments and institutions and through a vast array of

academic, medical, and grassroots pursuits. Its constant effort [is] to increase its presence in civil institutions of power.

[T]heir work in the public sphere breaches the church-state division

that is fundamental to modern democracy,” noted Gordon Urquhart, author

of The Pope’s Armada: Unlocking the Secrets of Mysterious and Powerful New Sects in the Church (1995).

“Opus

Dei uses the Catholic Church for its own ends which are money and power

…. Its members form a transnational elite. They seek to colonize the

summits of power. They work with stealth – ‘holy discretion’ – and practice ‘divine deception,’” declared Robert Hutchison in the introduction to his book, Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei.

“Opus Dei is mostly middle- and upper-class businessmen, professionals, military personnel and government officials. Its members control a large number of banks and financial institutions,” according to Martin A. Lee, author and activist who has written books and articles on far-right movements.

For example, Opus Dei also operates the Leonine Forum, “Cultivating Catholic Professionals for Lives of Virtuous Leadership.”

Among the 2017-2018 New York City Fellows are those employed in Wall Street

brokerages, law firms, leading publications, universities, medicine,

industry and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of N.Y.

The 2017-2018 Washington D.C. Fellows include those employed in the federal government:

White House, State Department, the House of Representatives, U.S. Dept.

of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Federal

Communications Commission, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit,

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, prestigious law firms,

conservative think tanks, higher education and medicine.

As an example of “military personnel,” veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh “claimed that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Vice Admiral William McRaven and others in the JSOC were members of the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei.” JSOC is “the elite Special Ops force” who

killed Osama bin Laden. “We’re gonna change mosques into cathedrals …

This is not an atypical attitude among some military — it’s a crusade,

literally,” Hersh reported. “He added that members of these societies

have developed a secret set of insignias that represent ‘the whole notion that this is a culture war’ between religions.”

:{In government, Larry Kudlow is Trump’s director of the National Economic Council. Plutocracy is “just what America needs,” Kudlow wrote in December 2016. “Putting the incredibly wealthy in

charge of the U.S. government” is described as Kudlow’s great idea.}:

Kudlow is one of Fr. John McCloskey’s notable converts to Catholicism. McCloskey was director of Catholic Information Center from 1998-2002.

Another McCloskey convert is former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, now Trump’s Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

Mick

Mulvaney will serve as Trump’s acting White House Chief of Staff,

beginning in 2019. He remains as director of Trump’s White House Office

of Management and Budget and interim head of the Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau. Mulvaney “has reportedly met with a long list of

lobbyists, corporate executives and wealthy people with business

interests before the government.” His meeting with Opus Dei’s Jeff Bell, architect of Reaganomics, covered “religious and political matters.”

Trump appointed C-Fam (formerly known as the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute), the “intensely anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ group” headed by Opus Dei’s Austin Ruse, to the U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

As to members who “control a large number of banks and financial institutions,” Pope Francis has appointed many of them to the Vatican.

Secrecy prevents certainty

Due to Opus Dei’s secrecy, we can only guess about non-disclosed membership. Some have done so anyway.

:{“It’s widely known that Supreme Court Justices Antonin

Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas belong to Opus Dei – and that Chief Justice John Roberts may also be a member,” stated Matthew Fox, a

former priest, progressive theologian and author of more than 23 books.}:

Others have also identified Scalia as a member, perhaps because his wife attended Catholic Information Center events and his son has spoken there.

Scalia’s influence,

however, is not in doubt. The Federal Society “really grew up as a

organization that promoted Antonin Scalia’s conservative judicial

philosophy.” On Nov. 10, Trump awarded Scalia the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S., for his “especially meritorious contribution” to this country.

Alito has been also been described as to close to Opus Dei by Church and State Magazine.

Some are linked by association. “Leo has been a longtime friend and champion of Justice:{Clarence Th:(style="background-color:#ff9900ff"):}:omas.”

When John Roberts

was nominated for the Court, Opus Dei’s Austin Ruse said his fellow

conservative Catholics could “breathe easy” and Leonard Leo “also

assured conservative Catholics that Roberts will not follow the same

path as Anthony Kennedy.”

“Leo, perhaps the most integral private individual in the selection of Kavanaugh” was present at the White House ceremony when Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination. Kavanaugh’s legal thinking is “shaped by Scalia.”

Gorsuch, was raised Catholic, went to the same elite Catholic prep school as

Kavanaugh, but is now Episcopalian. He did his doctoral study on

“natural law,” a theory asserting that certain rights are inherent by

virtue of human nature that can be understood universally through human

reason, first taught by the Catholic monk, St. Thomas Aquinas. On Oct.

19, Gorsuch spoke “at a conference of Catholic legal scholars seeking to expand Christian influence on public policy” which was closed to the public.

During his time at the U.S. Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit, Gorsuch took a “strong stance” for “religious freedom” in the Little Sisters of the Poor case. He also concurred in the Hobby Lobby case in favor of the Green family.

Pope

Francis met with the Little Sisters of the Poor while in the U.S. in

support of their lawsuit. The year before, the pope granted a private

audience to Hobby Lobby’s

Green family, asking them “how their Supreme Court fight against

President Obama’s contraception mandate was progressing.” They won.

:{The

nuns’ lawsuit was against the Obamacare provision that those seeking

the same religious exemption to providing contraceptive health care

coverageto their employees as “houses of worship” must fill out a }:

two-page form explaining why. The nuns’ argued that filling out the forms “makes them complicit in providing women with contraception.”

This became a cause célèbre for conservative Catholics and may well have tipped the Electoral College total in favor of Trump.

:{In September 2016, Trump promised that “If I am elected president, [t]he Little Sisters of the Poor,

or any religious order for that matter, will always have their

‘religious liberty’ protected on my watch and will not have to face

bullying from the government because of their religious beliefs.”}:

In

October, Trump sent a letter to the Catholic Leadership Conference: “I

will make absolutely certain religious orders like the Little Sisters of Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs.”

In the final days of the campaign, Trump gave an interview on the Catholic EWTN, “the largest religious media networkin

the world.” Trump again sympathized with the Little Sisters of the

Poor. “Religious liberty” was in “tremendous trouble” and “the biggest

issue right now is the Supreme Court judges,” he said.

Trump

won all the rural and Southern Evangelical-majority states, as

expected. But, “his victory in the Electoral College came down to a

razor-thin edge of only 77,744 votes across three states: Pennsylvania

(44,292 votes), Wisconsin (22,748 votes), and Michigan (10,704 votes).

These votes represent a Trump margin of 0.7 percentage points in

Pennsylvania, 0.7 percentage points in Wisconsin, and 0.2 percentage

points in Michigan.”

There are more Catholics than Evangelicals in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. While there are more Evangelicals in Michigan than Catholics (25% v 18%), the Evangelical vote alone wasn’t sufficient to give Trump a win.

:{Trump won60% of

white Catholics while receiving only 46% of the national popular vote.}:

As public opinion seesawed during 2016 campaign, every poll that

included the respondent’s religion showed Catholics choosing Trump at

percentages higher than the general electorate. (See also here, here and here.)

“Both white and Latino Catholics cast more ballots for Trump than for Romney in 2012.” Evangelicals “went overwhelmingly for Trump, but

that was also true in 2012 when they weren’t even sure Romney was

Christian. They aren’t the swing voters. Catholics, on the other hand, were plus-2 for Obama in 2012 and plus-7 for Trump.”

Now the Justice Department, too

Last week, Trump nominated William Barr as Attorney General. Described as a “committed Catholic,” Barr was “highly recommended” for the position by Leonard Leo. As a former U.S. attorney general, Barr “will enter the Justice Department with an awful lot of credibility and respect for the role he previously played,” Leo said.

Trump’s choice of Barr has been widely criticized.

Barr has publicly defended Trump on several of his pet issues. He

endorsed the firing of James Comey, called for investigation of the

Clinton Foundation, impugned the neutrality of Robert Mueller’s

investigators, and defended Trump’s practice of demanding investigations

of his enemies. Barr has a record as one of the members of the

Republican legal Establishment most indulgent of Trump’s conspiratorial

mafia ethos.

But a new report in the Wall Street Journal suggests more complete answer. Earlier this year, Barr wrote a lengthy memo excoriating Mueller’s investigation

of Trump for obstruction of justice. Mueller’s investigation was

“grossly irresponsible,” had “potentially disastrous implications,” and

other choice descriptions spread over 20 pages culled from public

reports. This memo was completely unsolicited.

It was reported on Oct. 18 that for the first time ever, the U.S. Department of Justiceopened

an investigation into clerical sex abuse of minors. Seven of the eight

Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania received subpoenas and the U.S.

attorney in Buffalo, NY, also served the diocese there. Until now, only state officials have conducted such probes. Washington D.C. and 19 states have also begun new investigations.

The

U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia “issued subpoenas that seek

years of internal records, including any evidence of Church personnel

taking children across state lines for purposes of sexual abuse, any

evidence of personnel sending sexual material about children

electronically and any evidence that Church officials reassigned

suspected predators or used Church resources to further or conceal such

conduct. Any of these could be the underlying crimes for RICO,” the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act originally designed to target the Mafia.

As journalist Patricia Miller noted, any federal investigation “could be impeded by higher-ups in the Justice Department.”

So

with five Supreme Court justices, the Attorney General, and who knows

how many other officials installed by Leonard Leo, we have much to worry

about.

Reprinted with permission from the author.

Betty Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America (Clarity Press, 2009).

===

==

https://www.nationofchange.org**/2022/07**/07/opus-dei-supreme-indecency-extreme-deceit/

the current Supreme Court majority that just denied women a legal right to abortion (Dobbs vs. Jackson)

consists of religious fanatics whose careers have been fast-tracked (so

that young Justices can serve for decades) by ultra-wealthy,

like-minded lobbyists and political operatives. :{The nexus of this

activity lies with a powerful arch-conservative organization within the

Catholic Church, Opus Dei, that in the U.S. operates out of the Catholic

Information Center in Washington D.C.}:

I am not targeting Catholics but rather the Church’s reactionary,

fundamentalist wing. Many Catholic organizations are dedicated to

upholding the rights and lives of minorities (and majorities, such as

women), victims of pedophilic priests, gays, the poor, immigrants, etc.

The fundamentalist wing of any religion has more in common with other

creeds’ fundamentalisms than with many of its own co-religionists, whom

they often regard as enemies.:{Catholic fundamentalism is obviously not

the only “brand” influencing American politics, but it is the one with a

dominant insidious influence on the judiciary.}:

Opus Dei and its partner organizations have poured tens of millions of dollars into promoting the careers and appointments of Chief Justice Roberts and the five Justices who overturned Roe: Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett (Roberts, an arch-conservative, nonetheless dissented on the abortion case). 

Opus Dei was founded in Spain by Escriva de Balaguer in 1928 and grew in power, wealth, and influence during the Fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco who, with significant military help from Nazi Germany, overthrew the legitimate Spanish government and ruled over a police state from 1939-1975. :{The group extended its power throughout Latin

America, supporting Pinochet’s murderous regime in Chile and other

terrorizing dictatorships. It consistently opposes gay, sexual, and reproductive rights, and the Catholic liberation movements that champion}:

the poor in Latin America. It has been involved in the Vatican’s

banking scandals but still wields enormous influence over Vatican

finances, as detailed by Robert Hutchison in his book, Their Kingdom Come.

Opus Dei’s assets as of 2008 were $2.8 billion, but they have undoubtedly grown since. Popes John Paul II and Francisboth elevated Opus Dei officials to the highest Church offices. One of Opus Dei’s core principles, as articulated by its founder,

is to engage in “the sphere of public life”, not because they are human

or Catholic rights but because “they are God’s rights…May such

‘fanaticism’ for the Faith…become stronger every day.” Opus Dei is not

simply a conservative religious group, it is openly dedicated to

wielding political and financial power in nations throughout the world.

And that often means promoting and aligning itself with the most

violent, reactionary regimes and acting in the shadow realms of

political influence.

:{Opus Dei members were prominent in Trump’s White House, including Attorney General William Barr and Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel. Opus Dei had access to Trump’s budgetdirector,Mick Mulvaney, along with other noted right-wing lobbyists (Heritage

Foundation, Koch Industries), meetings the Trump administrationtried to keep secret. Member Larry Kudlow

was Trump’s director of the National Economic Council. It may well be

the most powerful political lobby in the world and yet its explicit

political agenda is absolutely subservient to its extreme, authoritarian

religious agenda.}:

A key fixer in this effort is Leonard Leo. Leo is on the board of directors of theCatholic Information Center (William Barr was a past director) and Executive Vice Presidentof the Federalist Society,a lobbying group that adheres to an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution (more on this below).

The two organizations are close political allies, as Leo’s dual role

suggests. As Trump’s close advisor during his presidency, Leo was

responsible for selecting and guiding the Supreme Court nominations of

Alito, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch and was instrumental in riddling

the lower Federal courts with Trump appointees.

:{Meanwhile, members of both Opus Dei and The Federalist Society include

Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Chief }:

Justice Roberts is a Federalist Society member and the Society’s members and supporters

are prominent in many of nation’s top law schools and most powerful law

firms, which allows it to have an untoward influence over judicial

selections. When Clarence Thomas headlined a 2013 Federalist Society fundraiser, guests were seated in proximity to him according to the size of their donations. In effect, the Federalist Society and Opus Dei have become the Supreme Court of the land.

Much of Opus Dei’s influence was exerted via the Wellspring Committee, established and run by Opus Dei members Ann and Neil Corkery in 2008. The Koch brothers were instrumental in providing Wellspring

with its first $10 million in seed money. According to Robert Maguire

of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Corkerys “have been the overseers of massive amounts of money that have gone into federal judicial races.”

Wellspring closed down in 2018 but not before

passing its mantle to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN); in 2017

Wellspring transferred $14,814, 998.00,

or 94% of its donations that year, to JCN. JCN was formerly directed by

Leonard Leo and now by Carrie Severino, who served as Thomas’s law clerk. (Opus Dei’s Roger Severino, Carrie’s husband, was Director of

Trump’s Office for Civil Rights). JCN is a 501(c)(4) organization so its

donors can remain secret. JCN poured millions into supporting Bush and Trump’s Supreme Court nominees (Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett) and millions blockingObama’s Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

Given Opus Dei’s absolute anti-choice ideology,  global power, and

influence over the Supreme Court, it is clear the Court’s anti-choice

decision was not driven by legal arguments over the right to privacy,

strict or “originalist” interpretations of the Constitution, or states

rights. These were all just window dressing. The Supreme Court—and much

of our judiciary—has been taken over by fanatics with a strictly theological agenda: to replace “separation of Church and State” with “the Church runs the state”. It is a narrow, fanatical religious ideology that decided the case.

The so-called “originalist” theory of interpreting the Constitution claims the Constitution only protects rights explicitly mentioned in the text. The Constitution itself rejects the “originalist” idea so central to conservative ideology. The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This

clearly states that interpreting the Constitution is a living, evolving

process, for how else can those “other[s]” rights be “retained by the

people”? The Ninth is also a safety valve: “If we left out any important

rights, sorry, our bad, it doesn’t mean those rights aren’t protected

as well.” The Ninth has been used to uphold such diverse rights as

teaching non-English languages, sending kids to private schools,

protecting against forced sterilization, and the 1965 Griswold decision

overturning bans on contraception, in which privacy was deemed a

“penumbra” (also called “unenumerated”) right. The penumbra concept was

then applied to abortion in 1973’s Roe decision.

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, citing both the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments: “This

right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s

concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we

feel it is, or…in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the

people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not

to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose

upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.” The Court also recognized that “When

those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy,

and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary…is not

in a position to speculate as to the answer.” Blackmun’s decision

includes an overview of the dramatic shifts in cultural and legal

attitudes towards abortion, though most views differentiated abortions

in the first 12-16 weeks (before the baby is usually felt moving inside

the womb) from those occurring later.

The “sanctity of the foetus”, that is, viewing abortion at any stage

of pregnancy as equivalent to murder, is the linchpin of the anti-choice

position and its driving emotional trigger. However, even the Catholic

Church’s historical opposition to abortion had nothing to do with the

sanctity of the foetus; it was aimed at the “sin” of sexual pleasure.

Church policy varied over the centuries but the foetus’s life was

either absent as an issue or secondary to sexual sin and other

theological concerns. St. Thomas Aquinas asserted that in its earlier

stages a foetus is in a “vegetal”

and then “animal” state before achieving person-hood at some point,

most likely at the end of the third month. It wasn’t until 1965 that the Church banned abortion on the basis of sanctity of life rather than sexual sin. However, the Bible passages used to justify this claim 1) do

not really address abortion (the BIble is much more direct in advising

that adulterers be stoned to death); 2) are drawn mostly from the Old

Testament, a Jewish document, significant since the Jewish religion

allows abortion; and 3) are in the Bible, which has no legal standing in

the United States. Or didn’t.

The Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson is only the

beginning, as anti-abortion activists and GOP-led extremists mobilize to

assault a wide range of rights. The anti-choice movement was never only

about abortion. Abortion was used as the emotional catalyst for a broad

attack on the values of tolerance and social commitment embodied in

Federal guarantees backed by Constitutional authority. The well-being of

Americans and our system of government is now in the hands of religious

fanatics on a crusade against all those who do not believe in their

degraded, medieval version of truth. They are welcome to their beliefs

but are not welcome to impose those beliefs on the rest of us, nor to

challenge the fundamental values of the United States, which holds the

value of human beings above adherence to extreme and rigid political or

religious ideologies.

===

===

// to C street?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/barr-to-be-honored-for-christlike-behavior-with-award-from-right-wing-catholic-group-with-strong-ties-to-trump/

no lnx twt

attorney General Bill Barr will be honored for his “Christlike behavior” at Wednesday’s National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, according to Roman Catholic Sister, author, and anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean.

"sister Helen Prejean

@helenprejean

The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast will present an award to Attorney General Barr for “Christlike behavior” tomorrow morning. A.G. Barr has ordered the executions of six men with at least one more on the calendar. What is “Christlike” about using discretionary power to kill?"

The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast says Barr will be presented with its Christifideles Laici Award during today’s 16th annual prayer event.

“In Honor and Gratitude for Fidelity to the Church, Exemplary Selfless and Steadfast Service in the Lord’s Vineyard,” are the words inscribed on the award.

The event is being sponsored by several groups, including Alliance Defending Freedom, which appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.

President Donald Trump is expected to address the group today during its virtual ceremony.

Among the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast’s founders are Pat Cipollone, President Trump’s White House Counsel; former Republican Senator Rick Santorum; and Joseph Cella, President Trump’s Ambassador to Fiji, and a former Trump transition team member who co-founded the right wing activist group Catholic Vote.

Another founder of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast is Austin Ruse, the president of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM).

Perhaps the most notable founder of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast is the group’s president, conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo.

Leo also serves as co-chairman of the Federalist Society, the far right group responsible for promoting the illegitimate belief that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted by judges according to how the nation’s founders thought.

President Trump, for the first time in history, has effectively farmed out the approval process for federal court judges and even Supreme Court justices he nominates, to the Federalist Society.

The award to Barr is being condemned by notable Catholics, including Sister Prejean, and Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor-at-large at America magazine.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-warning-lights-are-flashing-red-how-trumps-toadies-are-helping-him-collude-with-russia/

After reviewing classified intelligence reports about Vladimir Putin’s attempts to interfere in the 2020 election over three weeks ago, Senator Richard Blumenthal tried to sound the alarm.

The warning lights are flashing red. America’s elections are under attack.

This week, I reviewed classified materials in the Senate’s Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility and received a similarly classified briefing on malign foreign threats to U.S. elections. I was shocked by what I learned — and appalled that, by swearing Congress to secrecy, the Trump administration is keeping the truth about a grave, looming threat to democracy hidden from the American people. On Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued astatement that only hints at the threats.

The facts are chilling. I believe the American public needs and deserves to know them. The information should be declassified immediately.

Blumenthal went on to say that what he learned makes “Moscow’s past interference and nefarious actions look like child’s play.” We still, however, have no idea of what shocked him enough to write that op-ed in the Washington Post.

What we do know is how the Trump administration reacted. Last Friday, the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, told Congress that his office would no longer brief them in person about foreign election interference, but would submit written reports. Clearly they don’t want to face probing questions from Congress. In defending his actions, however, Ratcliffe admitted that it goes beyond that.

[no twt]

ratcliffe’s initial argument doesn’t make any sense. He said that he is going to stop in-person briefings because members of Congress leaked classified information to the press. What he didn’t explain is how that would stop leaks. Classified information provided in writing is even easier to share with reporters.

In a scathing rebuke of Ratcliffe’s announcement, the Washington Post editorial board pointed out that the only so-called “leaks” came from the kind issued by Senator Blumenthal.

After the intelligence community briefed members of Congress in late July about threats to the upcoming election, Democrats expressed alarm about what they had learned — and about the fact that the information had not been shared with the American public. “The warning lights are flashing red. America’s elections are under attack,” wrote Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in a Post op-ed, without disclosing any specifics…

[T]he only “leak” was the simple fact that the administration was withholding critical information about Russia’s interference — which, of course, is intended to help President Trump win reelection.

In that clip of Ratcliffe’s Fox News appearance, he eventually got to the point by saying that Democrats leaked information that “simply wasn’t true, that somehow Russia is a greater security threat than China.” In a case of obvious projection, Ratcliffe is telling us that the Trump administration doesn’t want Congress or the public to know what Moscow is doing to interfere in the election, but instead wants to change the narrative to focus on the distraction they’re offering about the threat posed by China. In other words, Ratcliffe is suggesting that he will now cherry-pick what intelligence is shared with Congress to provide cover for what Moscow is up to.

Added to that is a troubling story about yet another purge in the Justice Department by Attorney General Barr.

Current and former national security officials are raising concerns over Attorney General William Barr’s recent decision to remove the head of a Justice Department office that helps ensure federal counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities are legal – and replace him with a political appointee with relatively limited experience.

Barr has reassigned 23-year career professional Brad Wiegmann, who had been serving as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Law and Policy. As ABC News reports, “The office shapes government efforts by ensuring that new policies and executive actions don’t violate federal law.”

We’ve heard stories from former Trump administration officials who have said that they often found themselves having to tell the president that the actions he wanted to take were not legal. As former DHS Chief of Staff Miles Taylor said, Trump would claim to have “magical authorities” to break the law.

Now Barr has removed the person whose job it is to tell the administration when they are breaking the law and replaced him with a partisan loyalist. While it might not be unprecedented to do that, the fact that it comes a couple of months before an election makes this one troubling. Here is the most telling part about Wiegmann’s replacement, Kellen Dwyer:

From 2018 to 2019, he served as a fellow at the conservative-leaning Leonine Forum, a non-profit organization that says its alumni are “committed to the cause of reintroducing the tenets of [the Catholic church] into the political, policy, legal, business, and cultural activities of society.”

The Leonine Forum was created by the Catholic Information Center (CIC),an extremist group founded by Father John McCloskey, who eventually left the organization over allegations of sexual assault. Several members of the Trump administration have close ties to the CIC, including Attorney General Barr, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and economic adviser Larry Kudlow.

What appears to be happening is that both Ratcliffe and Barr are paving the way for Putin and Trump, who speak regularly by phone, to illegally collude in their efforts to influence the election—this time from the Oval Office with the entire federal bureaucracy at their disposal.

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